In response to being asked by more than a few new players about what gear they needed first, I compiled this list based upon the prevalence and reuse among loadouts. There are probably more that I could include, but I elected to only include the most extreme examples.
Story Mode Legendaries- These items have a random chance of being dropped by one boss in the listed story mission. Some require advanced difficulty specifically, but, if it’s listed as “normal or advanced”, the drop rate will tend to be higher in normal mode because it’s competing with fewer other drops.
Symbiotic Gauntlet (sentinel, normal or advanced)
The best attack damage legendary in the game for ranged characters and one of the best for melee characters. It comes with a bunch of max hp (which is almost always the best or one of the best survivability stats as well) too.
Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr (sentinel, advanced only)
Tied for best attack speed item in the game with Vow of Zealous Fury, it’s significantly easier to get.
Vyn's Quiver (sentinel, normal or advanced)
An excellent utility piece for characters that reload, it can provide a lot of regen as well as a lot of reload. It’s a great way to get some regen on characters that don’t have any other way to heal themselves while still getting reload. It’s even better in PvP when you’re probably using one of your loadout slots for a free shard generator and need to cram as much as you can into your two remaining slots.
Vigilant Power Scouter (sentinel, normal or advanced)
The best critical damage item in the game. Just like with the Symbiotic Gauntlet, it gives you excellent damage increases while also providing a massive additional amount of hp.
Bola's Target Finder (experiment, advanced)
The gold standard of skill damage legendaries, the legendary effect is absolutely amazing. The secondary stat is also one of the best attack stats for most characters too.
Vow of Zealous Fury (heliophage, normal or advanced)
Easier to generate stacks for than Stolen Edge of Arcvynorr (some characters are, in fact, basically incapable of scoring crits except via their quick melee) and with a sometimes better secondary stat (personally, I prefer crit damage to movement speed). If you have it, most will consider VoZF to be better than SEoA but it’s harder/more annoying to get because of the mission you have to run.
Loot Pack Legendaries- You can get these out of any loot pack (it’s just exceedingly rare in the common and uncommon packs) but, except for the faction specific packs, they draw from the entire pool of loot pack legendaries rather than the smaller pools. The best way to get these is to farm Operations missions with 100 ops points as a character of the faction in question (completing Ops with 100 ops points gives you a faction commander pack, with a high chance of getting a legendary out of it; faction commander packs also give copious amounts of credits).
Voxis Core (jennerit)
An absolutely incredibly powerful legendary, all of your skills suddenly gain a 15% AoE around any target they hit. A target can only be hit by this 15% AoE damage once per skill used, but, when you’re using skills on clustered groups of enemies, you’re talking about a 15% increase in damage dealt (on top of the skill damage secondary stat). Comically enough, the primary stat isn’t what makes it particularly useful. It’s not as generally useful as some other legendaries but, for those characters that like it, it’s absolutely devastating.
Pain-2-Gain Re-Knitter (upr)
An incredibly powerful piece of survivability gear. If you can recover from the damage you take (without dying), you’ll get 2 primary stats worth of hp on top of a nice chunk of damage reduction.
Non-Legendaries- You can get these via general and faction specific packs as well as story missions. You have a chance at getting these by doing pretty much anything (PvP gives you credits to pack loot packs; story and ops missions will simply provide drops), but, if you want to try and improve your chances a bit, completing Ops missions with 100 ops points with a character of the faction in question will get you a faction commander pack, which restricts the loot pool a bit and improves your chances somewhat.
These are all more for PvP than for PvE. In PvE, more than enough shards are provided to afford a loadout full of legendaries for absolutely everyone in your group (unless you’ve got 1-2 people that refuse to share). As such, legendaries tend to be more useful because they provide more to spend shards on.
Survivor's Regrowth Serum (eldrid, rare)
A huge chunk of regen. You may also want to get the “Drained” variant (-42 shield recharge) for Eldrid characters, since, by default, they don’t have shields to be hurt by it.
Stout Ekkuni Wristguard (eldrid, uncommon)
Attack damage and an easy to get and large amount of max hp. For Eldrid characters, the “Antiquated” variant (-140 max shield) is excellent since it reduces the activation cost and doesn’t really penalize the Eldrid characters. If you want to plan around the possibility of dying, you can go for the epic rarity version (Fortifying Ekkuni Wristguard), which also happens to come with an “Antiquated” variant, but the activation cost is higher.
Stout Golemic Sigil (eldrid, uncommon)
Skill damage and an easy to get and large amount of max hp. For Eldrid characters, the “Antiquated” variant (-140 max shield) is excellent since it reduces the activation cost and doesn’t really penalize the Eldrid characters. If you want to plan around the possibility of dying, you can go for the epic rarity version (Fortifying Golemic Sigil), which also happens to come with an “Antiquated” variant, but the activation cost is higher.
Stout Aelfrin Warblade (eldrid, uncommon)
Attack speed and an easy to get and large amount of max hp. For Eldrid characters, the “Antiquated” variant (-140 max shield) is excellent since it reduces the activation cost and doesn’t really penalize the Eldrid characters. If you want to plan around the possibility of dying, you can go for the epic rarity version (Fortifying Aelfrin Warblade), which also happens to come with an “Antiquated” variant, but the activation cost is higher.
Survivor's Eldrid Bio-Weave (eldrid, rare)
A huge chunk of max hp. You may also want to get the “Drained” variant (-42 shield recharge) for Eldrid characters, since, by default, they don’t have shields to be hurt by it.
Erratic Shard Extractor (jennerit, common)
Free shard generators are so ubiquitous in PvP that they’re almost required. All of them come with a penalty so you just need to find the variant that doesn’t affect your character. This one reduces the speed of your reloads, which is something that a majority of characters don’t even do.
Sketchy "Easy Money" (rogue, common)
Free shard generators are incredibly ubiquitous in PvP that they’re almost required. All of them come with a penalty so you just need to find the variant that doesn’t affect your character. This one reduces the power of your heals so, unless you’re currently playing a healer, this won’t affect you at all.
